Old Farming Related Books.

[powerrabbit]

Who collects them or has examples from days gone by?  I'm sure that a lot of us have some wheather they are from our childhood, school or college days or even ones that our parents or even our grandparents had.

I have quite a library of these type of old books dating from 1864 and are a very interesting insight into past farming practices, methods and animal husbandry.

I have just been looking through one that I bought from eBay that is titled 'Farm Tractors' and was published in the summer of 1946 for the Vigzol 'Vitafilm' oil refining Company. A very interesting 61 page book, cloth covered board covers with gold tooling. This book, apart from the advertising element, covers the history and development of tractors with notes on their proper maintenance with a lot of line drawings and black and white photos.

[britainswomble]

My father used to have a lot of old farming magazines tucked away in his loft. Sadly, after he died; mum either threw them away or gave them to someone. I was hoping to take over ownership of them as there were a lot of interesting articles in them about old machinery.

      Two of the titles I remember from the fifties were; Dairy Farmer and Farmer and Stockbreeder. Iused to have Power Farming when I was younger. Sadly I don't have them any more as like all old mags, they quickly become rubbish and it's not until many years later you realize they are of historic interest and potentially valuable and irreplaceable.  If only we knew then; what we know now.  \ 

[powerrabbit]

Well, thats hindsight for you, if we only knew then what we know now! I have a copy of The Farmers Weekly from 1953 and it's interesting to read the prices of cattle etc and the land and property prices, the tractor and machinery prices as well, new and secondhand. Also the adverts are interesting, how many do you see now that give you the price?

A couple of years ago I had a chap at a book fair offer me a set of 12 volumes of farming books for a tenner, I did'nt even look at them 'till I got home, these volumes are each about 2 inches thick and were published in 1911 and were only available by subscription from the printers so they are quite unique, they are a sort of farming A to Z dictionary come encyclopaedia, you know the sort of thing, and in the back pages of three volumes, 4, 8 and 12, there is an anitomical paper fold-out of a horse, pig, sheep and cow, each of these are in 'layers' starting with the whole animal, the next flap you lift reveals the mustle structure, next is the organs, lift the lungs and the liver and reveal the heart and kidneys. Lift up that flap and reveal the skeleton of the animal.    Fantastic set of books, you can spend hours looking at them.

[powerrabbit]

This topic hasn't been added to for some time so time to revive it.

Bought a nice hardback book in a secondhand book/record shop today. Saw it on the shelf and had a quick squiz at it 3 weeks ago and dismissed it but it's been eating away at me from then so I went in the shop and it was still there so I grabbed it.

This book is titled 'Harvest Triumphant' by a chap called Merrill Denison. It is a first edition and was printed in 1949, expensive for the time at 12 Shillings and 6 Pence (65p now) but the interesting thing about it is that it is actually the complete history of Massey Harris. Lots of photos and has 351 pages. I bet there's not many of this book still in existence, I think it was quite a good find.

[rorsday]

Dear Powerrabbit,

That's actually a really good find, especially at a bookshop. Harvest Triumphant is an early history of Massey-Harris. Copies do occasionally appear - I have two (one would be for sale if anyone wants one) - but it's a nice factual account of the company. In terms of value, on eBay I suspect one would be worth £15, but I wouldn't be surprised if a specialist bookshop was offering one for £20-£30.

You mention collecting old farming books. This is one of my father's great passions (as well as mine to some extent). He works on the theory 'the older, the better', so he's got quite a collection of farming books from the 1800s. We've developed a taste for bound volumes of the 'Agricultural Gazette', which began in the 1840s and continued through until the mid-1920s. He's also very interested in old farming bills, letterheads, etc.

He's renting a property at the moment, so a lot of his paperwork is in storage. To give you some idea of the scale, we have an 8-tonne AS Marston trailer that's full to the top of farming magazines, etc. Hopefully one day we'll be able to have some form of joint library with our respective collections displayed. One day.....

Regards

R Day

[BC]

Well I have a collection of old farming books not as old as Tim's and not as voluminous as Rory's ....mine fit into two boxes of A4 photocopier paper ;D

http://www.farmtoysforum.com/forum/index.php/topic,23398.0.html

[powerrabbit]

Rory. The book cost me £5. 50p and is in remarkably good condition for its age including its original dust jacket so that's a bonus.

I think that the oldest farming related book I have is an old veterinary book titled 'The New Cattle Doctor' or to be more precice, 'The book that every farmer needs. England and America's Cattle Doctor'. Written by a James Lund. A hardback cloth board bound book with 412 pages that has old recipes and remedies for making up animal medicines of which the majority of ingredients are plant and natural chemicals, what we would now call 'natural' or 'organic' components. Inside the cover there are a list of animals that these remedies are applicable to, it says, 'A reformed treatise of medecines and means for the cure of  diseases in  oxen, cows, sheep, swine and dogs with a great variety of original resipes. Directions for the treatment of Rinderpest and other  valuable information'.

There is no date printed in the book to indicate the time of publication but there is a reference to a certain prominent veterinarian of the 'recent' time, 1866. There are a number of 'ailments' and 'diseases' mentioned in this book that although then having a different name, we would recognise today, for instance, 'Brain Fever' which is described as ' The symptoms of this disorder are ravings, slow respiration, a disturbed  and frightful  countenance with signs of madness'. Sound farmilliar? We're talking about the cow here. The reference to 'Rinderpest' I mentioned is what we know as Foot and Mouth disease.  A most interesting book and a trip back in farming times.

Just found another on my shelf, this is the same type of book titled 'Diseases Of The Sheep' dated 1890. Full of interesting sheep ailments and cures with a good lot of drawings explaining what to look for and procedures, it even tells and shows you how to amputate a sheeps leg, very handy if you only want a leg of mutton for your sunday roast without having to kill the animal first! 

[tractorbob]

i have 40 ish farmers weeklys from the 30s to the 50s and about 10 from the 70/80s

[Leakeyvale]

I have "The Boy's Book of Mechanised Farming" by  Frank Griffin.  Published in July 1964 it covers farming equipment from pre-history to "Modern times".  Quite a good read actually!

[Tellarian]

Anybody read A G Street, fascinating books.

[Jdeere6910]

I have a few old farming books from the 50's and 60's. As well as 2 vetinary books from the 50's makes some very interesting reading indeed.

[The Tractor Twitcher]

Here's a few photographs of machinery related interest from the oldest farming related book I have. A 1951 copy of Farmer and Stock Breeder which has been passed down to me. It's not in the best of condition but there's some really fascinating adverts and articles encompassed within this book, here's a few of my favourites for anyone interested.

[The Tractor Twitcher]

Machinery launches and ideas making the news in 1951.

Fraser and Lloyd Dragon crawlers.

Taylor - Doe "Silage Combine" conversion.

N.I.A.E experimental "roly-poly" 2 furrow reversible plough.

Jones Invicta self propelled baler.

Whilst here's one of my favourite classic era books residing in my collection an alphabet style book from Nick Baldwin. I bought it from the Fordson 500 many years ago for very little money.

[powerrabbit]

I have a couple of A.J Street books, 'Strawberry Roan' and 'Farmers Glory'. I have a fair collection of old farming books that would take me a couple of hours to list them all. Got a copy of 'The Boys Book Of Mechanised Farming' as well. Another interesting book on my shelf is 'The Wonder Book Of The Farm'. This is a 2nd edition, undated but is around 1958. A board covered book like the old 'annuals', it's from the 'Wonder Books' series, with 'seven plates in colour and two hundred photographs'. 224 pages. Another good 'childrens' one is 'Timothy's Book Of The Farm'.

[simong]

i have all of the Farm Machinery books by Claude Culpin apart from 2nd edition,mostly got them from e-bay over the last 5 years,most of them have between £10-£20 each apart from the 1st edition which £35 in perfect condition, very enjoyable reading

[david_scrivener]

I have lots (really LOTS) of old poultry books, plus some on pigeons, cage-birds and general farming. My oldest original is Bonington Moubray's 'A practical treatise on..........domestic poultry.........' (full title is ridiculously long), 1842, one of the later editions, the first being in 1816. Over the many editions it was gradually enlarged to include most aspects of smallholding activities, so the title of my copy is somewhat misleading as it includes chapters on pigeons, rabbits, pigs, dairy cows, pigs, bees, home beermaking, etc.

The book which give the oldest direct account of livestock keeping in my collection is the 1963 English language translation by L.R.Lind from the original Latin 'Aldrovandi on Chickens', published in 1600. Ulisse Aldrovandi was a professor of natural history at Bologna University 1560-1605 (when he died). This translated book represents just one chapter in Aldrovandi's major work 'Ornithologia', which obviously covered all birds known to Renaissance scholars.

I have a few original 18th century books, but none on farming etc. One has an interesting passage where the author laments the fact that a rapidly going senile old woman he knew was being accused of being a witch by the local yokels - just because she had started to get her prayers muddled up in church apparently.

But not everything has changed over the centuries. I have a 'Farmers Weekly' type newspaper from 1817, which has a crime section, mostly covering stories about stolen horses and burnt down haystacks, but also including the story of Mr Jones, farmer, who was going for his evening walk by The Serpentine (London was tiny in 1817) when a boy, aged about 10, started walking with him, who eventually said the flowery 1817 equivalent of "Give me 10 shillings mister or I'll tell everyone you was interfering with me." Mr Jones refused at first, but then the boy's adult accomplice appeared and threatened him with a knife, so he had no choice but to pay up. And people think this sort of thing is new..... 

[super6]

Anybody read A G Street, fascinating books.

Read them all bar one...................Fair Enough, cannot find this one  :'( 

I have some doubles if interested